Planning Your International Day of People With Disability
Need some support?
Purchase our artist support package and one of our artists will help you through all the Event Day activities.
How your Event Day looks to you and your school is up to you. You might decide to just stick with a couple of the activities for just one class or your school might want to take the time to make this particular event day stand out, making it more of a full school event. We are here to support you to create whatever type of event day your choose!
The Big Picture!
Sometown Something School has decided to have a full school event day planned for International Day of People With Disability! The classes each have planned their part of the event day, and they are all unique in some way.
All of the classes have spent time researching the issues, looking at resources, and doing activities to help them create a presentation for the rest of the student body.
There is a kick-off with an assembly or announcements. One class stages a protest through the halls. There is a radio call-in show broadcast throughout the school. The classes take turns going through environments set up by a couple of the other classes. Later in the afternoon, other classes broadcast performances over zoom or an assembly (poems, songs, skits) and the older grades close the day with an image based, narrated presentation (slide show, shadow, blacklight) to give voice to what moving forward with better understanding as students looks like, summarizing all that has been learned and explored that week.
- Research and Connection: Trickster has done some of that work to start you off! You will find organizations you can reach out to and information that can help you get started on the topic in the Links & Resources Lesson.
- Related Activities: In each of the event days, there are activities which will help your students connect more with the subject to help them get a better understanding of the issue that they are exploring.
- Presentation/Performance/Events/Environments: This is where your students can take what they have learned, develop those ideas, and share them more broadly with others. They also get to participate and learn through seeing the work of other classes. Finding ways to vary the presentation styles between classes will help keep the engagement higher for all.
When you have a Trickster Artist support your school, they will take you through the entire process of planning and putting on an event day, from start to finish.
We will hold a series of online meetings with your staff. These will focus on:- Planning thoughts and considerations
- Covid: While we have some options which are better suited to socially distant conditions, you will have to evaluate and adjust parameters to meet your needs and standards. All materials provided are offered to you for you to use in your own way as you see fit. Safety takes precedence over any of our written ideas/suggestions.
- Your Goals: You may find a particular event aligns strongly with core values that your school has. That might be the one that you choose to go ‘big’ with. Becoming familiar with the activities provided during smaller Event Days may also help you plan for your ‘Big’ Event Day.
- Alignment: It is important for all involved to treat the topic(s) respectfully. This is especially important if your chosen topic has to do with any marginalized group. In this case in particular it is highly recommended that you reach out to organizations/ community members to gain input and voice to the subject matter (remember to check the Links & Resources lesson). If you ask for, and get permission to feature their words, pictures, art, or, if they are willing to participate with a class in either developing, or participating in, the final display/productions; those efforts can build bridges with communities and make sure that we are not just making assumptions in how we choose to present and comment on these subjects.
- Time: Knowing what size of an Event Day you are looking at, and the content you want to approach, will help you establish the lead time that you will need to research, connect, and produce an event for your school. Set a reasonable time frame, but with limits! A little time pressure with milestones keeps everyone on track and focussed on the project.
- All Steps in the Planning Process
- Choosing locations
- Activities/Styles
- Vision and Schedule
- Creation: Research and supporting activities
- Giving Direction to the Pieces/Activities Along the Way
- Creating follow up materials for the classes that watch
- Final Check-in
- THE BIG DAY!
- Follow up